Their journey kicked off Monday simply after 2 pm ET when the astronauts strapped into the Crew Dragon capsule, which has remained hooked up to the ISS because it arrived with the crew in April. They will spend the remainder of the day aboard the capsule because it maneuvers by orbit. The capsule is slated to splash down off the coast of Florida, round 10:30 pm Monday.
SpaceX first found a difficulty with its spacecraft’s rest room in September whereas inspecting a special Crew Dragon capsule. The corporate discovered {that a} tube used to funnel urine right into a storage tank turned unglued, and was inflicting a leaky mess hidden beneath the capsule’s ground.
Throughout a press convention performed remotely from the ISS on Friday, McArthur mentioned utilizing undergarments reasonably than the bathroom is “suboptimal.”
“However we’re ready to handle,” she mentioned. “Spaceflight is stuffed with a number of little challenges. This is only one extra that we’ll encounter and deal with in our mission, so we’re not too apprehensive about it.”
The spacecraft ought to nonetheless be protected to fly, if not barely much less comfy than earlier than.
Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet and Hoshide are making their return to Earth earlier than the subsequent crew of astronauts was in a position to get to the ISS to exchange them. NASA and SpaceX are hoping to get one other mission off the bottom later this week.
That subsequent mission, known as Crew-3, was slated to take off final weekend however was delayed — first by climate points after which by a “minor medical situation” with one of many astronauts. NASA mentioned Thursday that it is anticipating that medical situation to clear earlier than takeoff later this week, and SpaceX and NASA officers at the moment are targeted on discovering a superb climate alternative for launch.
